Masters of the Air
 

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks looking to film new aviation blockbuster in Lincolnshire | Lincolnshire Live

American aviation advisers to a new Second World War blockbuster series by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are visiting Lincolnshire to get a flavour of our historic USAAF connections.

Masters of the Air is a ten-eposide mini-series which forms the third intalment in their triology after Band of Brothers and Pacific. This time the story focuses on the American daylight bomber raids over occupied territory, launched from Norfolk and Suffolk. Scenes will be shot at UK locations yet to be decided but officials here want to suggest that Lincolnshire also gets in on the action, given our county's strong wartime links with the USAAF.....

Don Miller, author of Masters of the Air, on which the new series is based, and scriptwriter John Orloff will be touring key aviation sites in Lincolnshire linked to the USAAF on Friday, February 24, in a tour organised by Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire........

Shouldn't that be Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire really ??

Arc

Its is the publications location.

It would also depend on which locations can be used for filming. How many in East Anglia and further south haven't been built over, surrounded by obtrusive structures, active sites or in controlled airspace?

ORAC that will be very few................

The Spielberg people were at Duxford on Monday.................. apparently it's 75 years since the 'Friendly Invasion'

Arc

No doubt involving a complete rewrite of history to show the murricans as the sole participants and sole winners of the War...

Again.

Presumably to have a look at a B17?

The "Unsinkable aircraft carrier" ! But they found our damp weather a bit discouraging, at first.

(Reported exasperated comment at the time): "Why don't they just cut the [barrage balloon] cables and let the goddam place sink ?"

D.

The Brits popped up in quite a few places in Band of Brothers, to be honest.

Remember the Memphis Belle was shot at that fenland airfield in Lincolnshire :)

Binbrook long gone of course................

Arc

Not the sole, but I think we have to agree, the major participants and winners. The Brits stopped Adolph winning (Battle of Britain), but couldn't have won it without the Americans. Who of course couldn't have invaded Europe without the unsinkable aircraft carrier, which wouldn't have been there if...circular argument.

I've often thought that once the B17, P51 and Glenn Miller were in the UK, Adolph should have quietly given up..there was no way he was going to win.

Before I get flamed, I'm as patriotic Brit as anyone, and readily acknowledge the contributions of other nations in the struggle.

I wonder if they will touch on the 'over sexed ,over paid and over here' part of their stay? My wife's grandmother, Suffolk born and bred says, 'ooh we had a lovely time during the war'. She gave me a book called East Anglia 1943, which has several references to local press reports regarding the behaviour of local girls and Gi's and morality concerns at that time. Even the mayor of Bury st Edmund's got involved, publishing an open letter to his citizens on morality!

Whilst I was the result of wholly British "immorality", my adopted brother was the result of a liaison between an American airman and a then 16 year old Cambridgeshire lass, and since his 71st birthday was earlier this week, I suspect over-enthusiastic celebration of "Victory in Europe"

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There were some strapping young lads in Bassingbourn village and Royston in the 50's/60's, who didn't appear to come from purely local stock

"Not the sole, but I think we have to agree, the major participants and winners."

And there was me thinking the Red Army arrived in Berlin on a coach trip.................

I thought the "Masters of the Air" name was changed to "The Mighty Eighth" a few years ago?

Trailer here

A subject which has been argued over endlessly, but as this thread is mainly concerned with air operations, and in particular the bombing offensive, it has to be said that the the Soviet Air Force played a very minor part in strategic bombing operations. It was primarily a tactical battlefield force, and was undoubtedly very effective in support of the Red Army, but there is no doubt that the Soviet advance Westward profited greatly from much weakened German defences, thanks to the combined efforts of the US 8th Army Air Force and RAF Bomber Command.

A VVSO I once met and who had fought his way from Normandy to Hamburg said when asked:

"The British bought time - if we'd surrendered in 1940 the US would never have come into Europe and the Russians would have been pushed way over the Urals. The Russians bought space and brought manpower - we'd never have won in Europe without the meat-grinder on the Eastern Front. The Americans brought technology and manpower - we'd still be sitting here staring across the Channel without them. Without all three fighting together the German would have probably won......."

Pretty fair summary I think

Boy you must be fun at parties. So it is too hard to imagine that an American production, focusing on an American unit would focus on the on the Americans? Band of Brothers, Pacific, Memphis Belle, Saving private Ryan, and even the stinkers like Pearl Harbor and Red Tails etc. were unit focused movies, so naturally focused on the American side of the story- but all seem to include the allies where appropriate.


I would not expect a movie focused on USAAF daylight raids to spend much time on Spitfire and Lancaster units nor the Russian front.


Nor would I complain that Dam Busters was too UK focused.


So while there does seem to be a bias for more American production to focus on American involvement in the war, that may be more due to demand and interest- not a attempt to rewrite history. Interested to hear which films/shows you see as attempts to re-write history...

I'll bite.

U-571...

I think Heathrow Harry (#19) has the right of it.

There was no "silver bullet". The Third Reich collapsed under the combined weight of all the force which the Allies had brought to bear over the years.

As I've said somewhere: "if our generation did nothing else, it put that monster down under the crossroads with a stake through its heart".

There was nothing special about us, we were just the ones on duty when the job came up. You, our grandchildren, would do just as well if something like it came along again (and yet might)......God forbid !

Danny.

Thank you. Saintsman. There are a lot of people on here who seem to suffer collective amnesia when they get on a collective slagging-off spree even though they know full well what I was referring to as it has frequently attracted lengthy posts from my point of view in the past.
The less pleasant side of internet herd-bullying behaviour.

The late David Balme, who took the Enigma and code books off U-110, gave an evening lecture at the Yacht Club of which he was a Member and I was Secretary. At the end he, with permission showed a trailer of the then soon to be released "U-571", with the addition of the postscript that he had requested the producers to include, to the effect that the movie was a work of fiction, based on the exploits of the then Sub Lt Balme and the crew of his ship.

sandiego, the key phrase is "complete rewrite of history". The film U-571 was one such, I quote from Wiki:

German submarine U-571 was a Type VIIC U-boat built for the Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine for service during World War II. U-571 conducted eleven war patrols, sinking seven ships totalling 47,169 gross register tons (GRT), and damaging one other, which displaced 11,394 tons. On 28 January 1944 she was attacked by an Australian-crewed Sunderland aircraft from No. 461 Squadron RAAF west of Ireland and was destroyed by depth charges. All hands were lost.
The fictional 2000 U.S. war film U-571 has no relation to this U-boat, but is very loosely based on the British capture of U-110 and her Enigma and cipher keys.

That is the sort of film that gets many others a bad name. There are of course many other films that are not fiction. Perhaps the best Allied film was The Longest Day. Other single nation films like Battle of the Bulge, Bridge at Remagen, Patton attracted no such criticism.

Of modern films I happened across The Fury the other day. A remarkable film featuring little, if any, music, and excellent CGI. Seeing the effect of an AP round hitting a tank and heating the armour to white hot was amazing and none of the usual Hollywood slow explosions.

One film that always agitated my father, who was a pilot on the Dakota Force on 194 Sqn in 1944 at places such as Kohima and Imphal, was ‘Objective Burma’ starring Errol Flynn. My Father always referred to it as ‘Errol Flynn winning the war in Burma single handedly’.

To quote Wikipedia:
Even though it was based on the exploits of Merrill's Marauders, Objective Burma was withdrawn from release in the United Kingdom after it infuriated British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and drew protests about the Americanization of an almost entirely British, Indian and Commonwealth conflict. An editorial in The Times said:
It is essential both for the enemy and the Allies to understand how it came about that the war was won ... nations should know and appreciate the efforts other countries than their own made to the common cause.

I wonder what Danny 42 thinks of ‘Objective Burma’ having also been there and was he as bothered as Churchill and others?

Don't forget what I consider the most fictitious military film of all times, "Top Gun". The movie was, and continues to be, a huge hit. I had the great honor to have graduated twice from Fighter Weapons School ("Top Gun" is simply the squadron call sign); once when flying the F-8 Crusader and later on when flying the F-14 Tomcat. Thrilling though some of the scenes may be, there is nearly nothing authentic about the film, especially the behavior of the main characters.

It's a shame really, because filming the actual truth might have made an even better movie from a civilian point of view. From the point of view of someone who was there, "Top Gun" is cringe worthy and even embarrassing.

Good ripping yarn - it's a movie, not a documentary. As mentioned, there was an acknowledgement of the actual events. It deservedly won awards for its sound - which was superb.
I'm ex-kipper fleet, btw - as was my Dad who was based in Iceland during the Battle of the Atlantic.

cynicalint,

Remember it well, my reaction was exactly the same as that of your Father. The distortion of the facts was so extreme as to be ridiculous.

Glad to hear of Churchill's objections, think it was only after I came back in '46 that I saw it in the UK. Wiki tells me that it was originally released in January, 1945, when I was in Burma with a war that still had another seven months to run.

Danny42C.

As one who's been interested in the strategic air offensive against Germany for many years I find it rather sad that discussions of it often degenerate into slagging off the contributions of one side or another. Remember that the bomber crews were all volunteers fighting a type of warfare that had never been tried before and tactics had to be made up as they went along. I for one look forward to "Masters of the Air" or whatever it will be called and hope it is as good as "Band of Brothers".
I have read that RAF Bomber Command had the second highest proportion of casualties of any force in WW2 and the US 8th AF was not far behind. The "honour" of having the highest proportion of casualties in WW2 belongs to the German U-Boat Fleet.

Polecat

So it would seem:
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2015/...illion-budget/

Some posters anger is misplaced. Don't blame the American film industry in Hollywood for making films about their forces exploits and contributions instead wonder why we cannot make anything which shows our deeds in warfare in this country. The modern British ( 80s onwards ) film makers show no inclination to show our young men and women in a good light in any conflict in the 20th or 21st C.
They might ask one of these people if they ever come across one of them 'why not ? All films seem to be about the multi culti world they inhabit in London or dubious 'romances or comedies ' ( I use these terms in the vaguest sense). Mostly god awful tripe with no appeal to the rest of us.
Hollywood understands that the Patriotic USA wants films about their people in war, the luvvies over here don't.

Which is why I much prefer the products of an earlier age such as The Cruel Sea, Ice Cold in Alex, Dunkirk, and many more.

HH,

Was that the same VVSO who agreed with your comments about a certain Allied tank? Do tell!

Why not? It is the 21st Century...and sex sells. :E

It's almost as if Hollywood films are targeted at a wide cross-section of society and are simplified and popularized to gain the largest share of box-office profits possible. Sometimes I suspect that these movies are not aimed at discerning war-historians like us at all!

Did somebody call?

Master Aircrew Ping (Retd.)

Herod, don't forget the P-51 was as much British as it was USA. Developed to fill a Brit requirement and paid for with Brit cold hard cash. The name "Mustang" was even a Brit bestowal. Initially the US had very little interest in the aircraft, the two aircraft given to the US languished on the USAAF test flight line.

Yes, Hollywood makes films that their audiences wish to see to make money.

As TTN says, we older citizens like the gritty war films from the 50s and 60s. In Hollywood's rush to the cash they still produce turkeys and dross - Pearl Harbour.

There's a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that the decision to put a Merlin engine into the P-51 actually happened at the AFDU at the then RAF Duxford